Congratulations to David Washburn (EMBA 2009) for being named as the president of the University of Tennessee Research Foundation (UTRF). UTRF is responsible for commercializing technology created by the University of Tennessee faculty. Prior to his move to Tennessee in 2011, David was at the University of Illinois where he was Senior Technology Manager at the Office of Technology Management.

We’re very elated at David’s career progress and wish him continued success.

J. C. Penney fired its CEO Ron Johnson earlier this month and brought back the former CEO. The firing is not surprising given J.C. Penney’s performance slide in the past year. Johnson, the architect of Apple retail stores, was never able to replicate his magic at J.C. Penney’s. Now J.C.Penney’s survival is at stake.

There is a fascinating article in the Wall Street Journal about the shrinking laundry soap industry (h/t: Surajit Dutta, EMBA 2014). The significant decline is attributed to P&G’s new laundry product—Tide Pods capsules with fixed detergent quantities and hence prevent customers from over-pouring detergents. As a result, detergent manufacturers are upset with P&G about the sales decline and wonder whether the new product is worth it if it hurts the whole industry. Retailers are also not too thrilled because the margins on the Tide pods are lower than liquid laundry and hence success of Tide pods is equated with shrinking retailer revenues.

Netflix stocks reacted positively to the news that the United States Postal Service (USPS) will be cutting its mail service from six days a week to five days a week. The rationale presumably is that the cuts in postal delivery could result in subscribers watching fewer DVDs thereby resulting in lower costs for Netflix.

John Donahoe, CEO of eBay, delivered the Hallene Lecture at the University of Illinois campus at Champaign last week. Mr. Donahoe, a native of Illinois, was previously managing director at Bain and Company before moving to eBay in 2005. In February, Fortune magazine named eBay in its list of most admired companies in the world.

Note from Raj Echambadi: Yahoo’s CEO Marissa Mayer has set off a firestorm by instituting a telecommuting ban (click here for the story). To understand the nuances of her decision, we requested our resident expert, Ravi S. Gajendran, to comment on this story. Here are Ravi’s thoughts on this subject.

Showing up matters! At least according to Marissa Mayer, former Googler and Yahoo CEO, who recently, perhaps unwittingly, launched a broadside against the millions of Americans that telecommute by banning Yahoo employees from working from home. A leaked memo to employees argued that showing up for work at a Yahoo office was the key to enhanced collaboration and teamwork.

There is an interesting graphic from Minute Clinic’s (owned by CVS) presentation to investors. They expect a shortage of 45,000 primary care physicians by 2020 and physician supply is years away from catching up. On the demand side, the health care law is expected to add about 32 million new patients into the system. So what should we do to provide affordable and convenient health care access for all?

Dell computers has reportedly gone private. It is an interesting turn of events at Dell, once the darling of Wall Street. In a larger sense, this move to go private could be a good thing for Dell’s prospects.